Onward, Christian Airmen

For years there have been reports of unwanted Christian proselytizing at the Air Force Academy.

In 2005 the Washington Post reported:

A military study of the religious climate at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs found several examples of religious intolerance, insensitivity and inappropriate proselytizing on the part of Air Force officers and cadets, but a report issued yesterday at the Pentagon concluded that the school is not overtly discriminatory and has made improvements in recent months.

How much improvement was made? In 2010 CBS reported that 41% of non-Christians were still being harassed with Christian proselytizing, and overall 19% were subjected to proselytizing. More than 2000 cadets (almost half) participated in the poll.

In 2013 some staff members at the Academy still think they have the right to proselytize to anyone they damn well wants to, even Jews who don't want to hear it.

So, what has the effect of Christian proselytizing been on the ethics and morals of the Air Force?


An Air Force general who oversaw three wings of ICBMs was recently fired for a drunken bender in Moscow. He was also "spending time" with two foreign women, a serious security breach.
 
Cheating is rampant in the Air Force Missile Corps. The men who control our nuclear arsenal give each other the answers to questions on tests that are supposed to make sure that these men don't make any mistakes. The officers complain that the standards are too high, and the penalties for failure are unreasonable.

It's sort of weird that these guys to whine about making little mistakes: they're working with nuclear missiles! The penalties for making those same mistakes with the real missiles could be instantly annihilating themselves with a nuclear detonation, starting a nuclear war with China and Russia,  destroying all of civilization, and maybe even killing off humanity.

Perhaps the real problem is that the nuclear mission is obsolete, according to Bruce Blair, of Princeton. The Cold War ended 20 years ago, and these nuclear weapons seem kind of pointless, making morale in the nuclear officer corps very low. Most of our nuclear weapons are pointed at Russia and China, and the chance that we will go to war with those two countries seems increasingly remote in this highly interconnected world economy.

The only countries that want nuclear weapons are nut jobs like North Korea, and countries that want to pump up their self-image and status like Pakistan and Iran.

The rest of us would just as soon be rid of the damned things.

Lynch Him!

Florida House candidate Joshua Black calls for hanging of President Obama

As Americans honored the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday, a Republican candidate for Florida House District 68 said President Barack Obama should be hanged for war crimes. "I'm past impeachment," Joshua Black wrote on Twitter. "It's time to arrest and hang him high."

I suppose it was only a matter of time.

Cheese or Lutefisk?

There seems to be an awful lot of comparing and contrasting going on between Wisconsin and Minnesota these days. I've talked about it recently and they are both excellent, real time cases as to which ideology, conservative or liberal, is most effective. This recent piece in the Times is the most in depth that I have seen as it addresses the fundamental differences in ideology with how each state is governed. There is also a video that goes along with it.


It's a pretty even handed report with criticism spread around evenly as one can see.

I'm wondering if the problems with Wisconsin's economy mean that Scott Walker won't really be a serious candidate for president in 2016.

Left Wing Fantasies (Or Why I Am A Moderate)

Jesse Myerson's piece in Rolling Stone on the five economic reforms millennials should be fighting for starts out just fine but then descends into the usual fantasy we hear far too often from the far left. The first point makes sense. There are a lot of things that need to be done in this country so there should be no shortage of work. There are also plenty of people that need jobs and want to work so let's get going.

The second point is where he starts to lose it and it just gets worse from there on out. Social Security is fine for those people that spend their lives working and paying in to the system but not for people who don't. Some people simply won't "get a life" and the labor force would be greatly diminished. The third point is simply socialism and a complete load of shit. The fourth point is communism and the fifth point is ridiculous.

Like the libertarian land where unicorns fart out gold, this vision of America is pure fantasy. It's a great example of why I am a moderate. My takeaway from this piece is that is in such a small minority that there shouldn't be any real concern. Unlike the Tea Party who is substantial wing in the GOP, there is no socialist wing of the Democratic party. There's just Bernie Sanders and even he isn't this bad.

The FTC Stakes a Vampire through the Heart

There was a foul, blood-sucking creature stalking the land, preying on the innocent and the naive, draining the life from the elderly and the infirm. This creature stole into the homes of the vulnerable, with soothing words and false promises, only to latch onto the throats of its victims and suck them dry. But a brave woman tracked this foul demon back to its lair in a dank swamp and staked it through the heart.

No, I'm not talking about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I'm talking about Jessica Rich, director of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection. At the request of Rich and the Florida Attorney General, the US District Court, Orlando Division has frozen the assets of Credit Voice, the company behind a scam to defraud the elderly and annoy the hell out of anyone with phone.

Credit Voice inundated the country with robocalls. The one we got the most was some guy shuffling through papers said something like, "Hi, it looks like someone in your family ordered you this medical alert monitor. They already paid for it, so press 1 to arrange delivery."

It was all a lie, of course: the real service provider, Medical Alert, gives the monitor away because they make out like bandits on monthly fees. Credit Voice would start charging the victims immediately, whether the device was activated or not. The scammers have received $13 million in commissions since March, 2012. The court has ordered restitution, but good luck with that. Credit Voice will declare bankruptcy any day now, and the principles will abscond to some island tax haven.

I'm extremely glad the calls have stopped., but this took an awfully long time to resolve. We would get this call two, three, four times a day for months on end.  I went to the FTC's Do Not Call website, made sure we were on the list, and reported the calls. When that didn't stop them, I seriously considered canceling my landline just to avoid these completely illegal robocalls. A year ago North Dakota issued Elite Infosystems (one of Credit Voice's aliases) and Michael Hilgar (the scumbag behind this scam) a cease and desist order to stop making fraudulent robocalls. The authorities have known about these bastards for a long time, but it took two years to shut them down.

The company that may be ultimately responsible for this fraud is Medical Alert, because they appear to have paid Credit Voice a commission while turning a blind eye to the scammers' methods. Medical Alert provides a device -- free of charge! -- that hooks into your landline. They give you a waterproof button on a wristband or pendant. You press the button if you fall down and can't get up. (Falling an extremely common proximate cause of death in the elderly.) The button signals the device hooked into the landline, which calls Medical Alert. They call you back to hold your hand and find out if you really need 911 service. All for the low-low price of just $29.95 a month (plus the cost of your landline).

That sounds kind of pricey for something with such limited utility. For not much more you can get a mobile phone that you can use for all sorts of things, including calling 911 and GPS tracking. Calling 911 yourself has the advantage of not having to wait for an operator making minimum wage or working in a foreign country to call you back. And I've got to wonder: if you've fallen down and broken your hip how will you get up to answer the phone? If you've fallen because you've lost consciousness from low blood pressure, diabetic shock, stroke or heart attack, you won't be able to press the button in the first place. And if you fall while taking your daily constitutional in the park, you're out of range of the device and it's useless.

I have a hard time believing these devices are all that useful. One purportedly helped Daniel Schorr, the veteran newsman, who had a similar system from Philips Lifeline. But the account of his accident highlights the limitations of these systems: if Schorr had fallen unconscious after hitting his head, he wouldn't have pressed the button. If his wife hadn't been there to answer the phone, the emergency response would have been delayed while the operator called around to ensure it wasn't a false alarm. And Schorr had a wife, who would have found him within minutes when he didn't come down for breakfast.

Don't get me wrong. I think there's a need for something like this. The elderly population of the United States is growing. People do better physically and psychologically if they stay in their own homes rather than being warehoused in nursing facilities. Independent living is cheaper, even when the elderly require in-home services like housecleaning, medical monitoring and meals. Technology is an obvious solution to monitor their well-being at a lower cost.

But the Medical Alert system doesn't seem to be the answer: it's a half-assed kludge that takes a big monthly bite out of an elderly person's Social Security check. A better solution would be a small, rugged, GPS-equipped, water-proof mobile phone that charges by induction, so that the phone can simply be placed on charger by the bedside at night (the elderly have a hard time plugging in tiny USB connections). It needs a 911 call button on the front. It should be able to monitor pulse and respiration, and blood sugar levels for diabetics. It should detect falls and conditions like heart attack, stroke, and diabetic coma, and call 911 automatically.

Do systems like Medical Alert save cities and counties money by vetting distress calls from the elderly? Or is it just another big-business ripoff of the elderly, at best preying on their fear and charging them 30 bucks a month for a false sense of security, and at worst delaying emergency responders who would get there faster with a direct 911 call?

75,000 New Democratic Voters in West Virginia?

Sharon Mills is a great example why the Democrats should take Reince Priebus's advice and "stamp Obamacare to their foreheads."

Ms. Mills, 54, who suffered renal failure last year after having irregular access to medication, said her dependence on others left her feeling helpless and depressed. “I got to the point when I decided I just didn’t want to be here anymore,” she said. So when a blue slip of paper arrived in the mail this month with a new Medicaid number on it — part of the expanded coverage offered under the Affordable Care Act — Ms. Mills said she felt as if she could breathe again for the first time in years. “The heavy thing that was pressing on me is gone,” she said.

And how many more people in West Virginia are there like her?

Here in West Virginia, which has some of the shortest life spans and highest poverty rates in the country, the strength of the demand has surprised officials, with more than 75,000 people enrolling in Medicaid. While many people who have signed up so far for private insurance through the new insurance exchanges had some kind of health care coverage before, recent studies have found, most of the people getting coverage under the Medicaid expansion were previously uninsured. In West Virginia, where the Democratic governor agreed to expand Medicaid eligibility, the number of uninsured people in the state has been reduced by about a third.

The question now becomes how many people will shift over to the Democrats as a result of the ACA. I think it's going to be far greater than people imagine because there are many poor people who have come to realize that conservatives are not helping them at all. This is a big reason why Mitt Romney lost the 2012 election. They are seen as the party of the aristocratic class.

Of course, we still do have plaque..

Still, even among those who most need insurance, there has been resistance to signing up. President Obama — often blamed here in coal country for the industry’s decline — remains deeply unpopular. Recruiters trying to persuade people to enroll say they sometimes feel like drug peddlers. The people they approach often talk in hushed tones out of earshot of others. Chad Webb, a shy 30-year-old who is enrolling people in Mingo County, said a woman at a recent event used biblical terms to disparage Mr. Obama as an existential threat to the nation. Mr. Webb said he thought to himself: “This man is not the Antichrist. He just wants you to have health insurance.”

How did the froth about the president get to be so thick? Honestly, it's a combination of many things. I think it begins with the fact that they are massively insecure, angry and hateful at someone else succeeding where they are failing. That's rooted in the adolescent behavior that I think is at the core of all of this. As I have mentioned previously, conservatives are also secret aristocrats who don't think Democrats deserve to run anything. Only members of the "club" should be at the high of a station. Race plays a part, of course as does pride and hubris in tandem with an extreme difficulty to admit error. But, as the article notes,

Eventually, though, people’s desperate need for insurance seems to be overcoming their distaste for the president. Rachelle Williams, 25, an uninsured McDonald’s worker from Mingo County, said she had refused to fill out insurance forms on a recent trip to the emergency room for a painful bout of kidney stones. “I wouldn’t do it,” she said. But when she got a letter in the mail saying she qualified for Medicaid, she signed up immediately.

Uh Huh:)

Unsustainable

OXFAM International just released a staggering report on inequality in the world. Here are the highlights.

• Almost half of the world’s wealth is now owned by just one percent of the population.

• The wealth of the one percent richest people in the world amounts to $110 trillion. That’s 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half of the world’s population.

• The bottom half of the world’s population owns the same as the richest 85 people in the world.

• Seven out of ten people live in countries where economic inequality has increased in the last 30 years.

• The richest one percent increased their share of income in 24 out of 26 countries for which we have data between 1980 and 2012.

• In the US, the wealthiest one percent captured 95 percent of post-financial crisis growth since 2009, while the bottom 90 percent became poorer.

The world economy simply cannot be sustained with this level of inequality. Demand is not where it should be and this is exactly why. If this gap continues to widen, demand will fall and more people will have less money as smaller businesses collapse.

Check out this video clip below from "Morning Joe" which illustrates how this is no longer a left-right divide.

 

Joe sounds quite a bit like Ronald Reagan in that 1986 speech I cite often. Note that they discuss how it isn't simply one issue like the tax code or the minimum wage but many issues that have coalesced into a fundamental systemic failure.

Barack Obama came to Washington to change it and this could be just the issue to do it. My colleagues on the Right and in the Tea Party assure me that they loathe the political and aristocratic class and its rent seeking as much as I do. So, what are we going to do about it?

Socialist Windmills

The other day in class we were talking about the chemical spill in West Virginia by Freedom Industries (ironic name, no?) and that discussion led into the topic of renewable energy. I mentioned the windmills we see when we drive down to Iowa to visit my in-laws. That was right around the time a student name Billy chimed in. A little background first...

Billy clearly has very conservative parents who feed him a lot of disinformation. When we do current events, he always makes some sort of anti-Obama comment followed by right wing blogsphere nonsense. The rest of the class usually rolls their eyes (even the Republicans) and, invariably, a debate ensues. Billy is a good kid, though, and is a ton of fun.

When the subject of wind power came up, he asked, "You mean those socialist windmills?"

"What makes you think they are socialist?" I wondered.

"Because Democrats support them so that means they are socialist."

After a brief explanation of the differences between the Democratic Party and socialism, as well as assurances from me that wind power in Iowa is privately owned, Billy seemed to understand the nuance.

I have to wonder how much longer we are going to have to clean out plaque from these poor people...

Some Thoughts On Dr. King

The Friday before Dr. King's birthday, I always have students ask me what I think of Dr. King. As I invariably do, I ask them what they think. But this year, I had two freshmen pretty much pin me to the wall in the last five minutes of Civics class and tell me to (once and for all!) give my opinion. So, this is what I told them.

Like many figures in history, Dr, King is "heroified," to use a James Loewen term. To a certain extent, this transformation has done him a great disservice. My primary gripe is that he is consistently made out to be a more secular figure when it was Jesus Christ and His heart of peace and love that drove Dr. King to action. Certainly, he had a profound sense of civic duty for equal rights but we shouldn't mistake the origin of his passion. The other element of his personality I urged my two students to consider is that he was not a perfect man. I wrote about this two years ago and it is still very important to remember. He made mistakes just like anyone else. He had doubts just like anyone else. He had moments of weakness just like anyone else.

In the final analysis, however, our country today is something he would have broken down and cried over with tears of joy. I told the two young women in front of me, one black and one white and best friends since pre-school, that in so many ways his dream has been realized. We aren't perfect in terms of race or prejudice but we have come a very long way. My students generation...my children's generation...simply can't conceive of a time when people were treated differently because they were black. It's as foreign to them as a time when people didn't text or have a computer. They just don't grasp the concept and that means that a great stain has more or less been culturally eliminated. I then asked them what they think Dr. King would be doing today if he was around. They both said the same thing.

"Helping people who are sick and who are poor."

His dream continues to be fulfilled.

Diamonds are Forever

Carl Sagan used to say that we are made of star-stuff. In his book The Cosmic Connection (1973) he wrote:

Our Sun is a second- or third-generation star. All of the rocky and metallic material we stand on, the iron in our blood, the calcium in our teeth, the carbon in our genes were produced billions of years ago in the interior of a red giant star. We are made of star-stuff.

We are recycled from material that was created when stars exploded billions of years ago. The carbon in our bodies has been recycled innumerable times, as it has gone from plants who drew it from the air, into herbivores who ate the plants, into predators who ate the herbivores, then exhaled by the predators, which was then inspired by other plants, which our ancestors ate, and we eat today.

As every kid who read Superman comics knows, you can make diamonds by exerting great pressure and heat on carbon. Synthetic diamonds are now made by high-pressure high-temperature processes in labs: they're harder and more reliable than natural diamonds. You can also make diamonds with a process called chemical vapor deposition, which allows diamonds to be used in heat sinks and electronics.

Diamonds hold a special place in American culture. Diamonds are a girl's best friend. Diamonds are forever. Diamonds are the usually the centerpiece of an engagement ring, symbolizing eternal love. Diamonds are the gift for the sixtieth anniversary (down from the 75th), an occasion that is exceedingly rare. Diamond was long the hardest substance known, but has recently been displaced by wurtzite boron nitride and lonsdaleite.

Diamonds made from the ashes of animals

Now you can have the carbon in the bodies of your loved ones turned into diamonds, so that they too can be forever. Companies in Switzerland and the United States offer services for turning cremated human ash into diamonds.

Depending on the size of the diamond, this can cost from $5,000 to $22,000. The diamonds are usually blue, because of the boron in the body. It takes about a pound of ash to create a diamond.

When we bury our dead or cast their ashes into the sea or a forest, their remains will ultimately return to the cycle of life. Their carbon will be be incorporated into the cells of bacteria and fungi, then plants, then animals and perhaps another person some day.

But if you turn your loved one's ashes into diamonds, their carbon will be locked up forever in a glittering gem, impervious to decay and corruption. Diamond sublimates at 6558ºF, which means diamonds may last until the sun bloats into a red giant in seven billion years, and may even survive that.

Is having your loved one turned into a diamond horribly creepy or hopelessly romantic? Is being a diamond immortality or an eternity of isolation?

Get In The Game

Michael Mann's recent piece in the Times is an excellent call to arms.

This is where scientists come in. In my view, it is no longer acceptable for scientists to remain on the sidelines. I should know. I had no choice but to enter the fray. I was hounded by elected officials, threatened with violence and more — after a single study I co-wrote a decade and a half ago found that the Northern Hemisphere’s average warmth had no precedent in at least the past 1,000 years. Our “hockey stick” graph became a vivid centerpiece of the climate wars, and to this day, it continues to win me the enmity of those who have conflated a problem of science and society with partisan politics.

The right wing blogsphere isn't scary at all. Threats of violence from men with titties don't mean anything. They are full of sound and fury and signify nothing. It's time for more scientists like Mann to recognize that and get into the game.

Interesting Thread

Check out this thread over at the Catholic answers forum. Look familiar?

And this was 9 years ago!!

Good Words

Now that a 4-year-old has shot and killed another 4-year-old in Detroit, we’re going to again talk about gun control, with predictably the same results. To me, two things are true: (1) Gun advocates who want no registration and management of gun ownership are in fact afraid of their government, and (2) we as a nation have a competency problem when it comes to managing gun ownership. 

Every gun advocate argument I’ve heard that is against better management (not restriction) of gun ownership boils down to the individual or group being afraid any government control will lead to removal of their constitutional right. Until we solve that problem, gun control will only be a dream. Yet when a 4-year-old has access to a loaded rifle that is improperly stored or when a troubled high school student has access to military-grade weapons without military-grade training, oversight or certifications, we have proved ourselves unable to manage gun ownership. Identify the real problems, and perhaps we can together come up with real solutions. (Letter of the Day, Minneapolis Star Tribune)

Gun competency...indeed. Meanwhile, in responsible gun owner land..

Americans who accidentally shot themselves recently: A 31-year-old man, showing off his high-powered rifle to friends, shot off part of his face, Waterville, Maine (November). A 22-year-old woman, handing her brand-new assault rifle to her husband, shot herself (fatally) in the head, Federal Heights, Colo. (May). Two police chiefs shot themselves (Medina, Ohio, in April and Washington, N.H., in June). A 66-year-old firearms instructor, Winona, Minn., shot his finger while explaining to his wife that it was impossible to pull the trigger while the gun is holstered (April). Awkward Wounds: A Columbia, Mo., man shot in the "posterior" while removing his gun from his back pocket (May); a 23-year-old man, Charleston, W.Va., shot in the groin while holstering his weapon (August); a 43-year-old driver, Norfolk, Va., shot in the groin while waving his gun at bystanders who objected to his speeding (August). Waterville: [Morning Sentinel (Waterville), 11-8-2013] Federal: [KMGH-TV (Denver), 5-16-2013] Medina: [Medina Gazette, 4-18-2013] Washington: [WMUR-TV (Manchester), 6-3-2013] Winona: [Winona Daily News, 4-30-2013] Columbia: [KMIZ-TV (Columbia), 5-30-2013] Charleston: [Charleston Daily Mail, 8-28-2013] Norfolk: [WTKR-TV (Norfolk), 8-7-2013]

Lavatory Art

Saw this recently in a stall in NE Minneapolis Pub...

Landowners Only, Please

Aristocracy...just like I said...

Retractions, Please

The United States Senate has released its report on the Attack in Benghazi on September 11, 2012. Here are some key takeaways.

The late Christopher Stevens, the American ambassador, has been partially implicated for the failure of adequate security at the diplomatic compound in Benghazi. The report notes that Mr. Stevens was aware of all of the intelligence reporting on Libya, including updates on the increased risks of anti-Western terrorist attacks that had prompted the C.I.A. to substantially upgrade the security at its own Benghazi facility in June 2012.

At times, Mr. Stevens requested additional security personnel from the State Department in Washington. But the inquiry also found that in June 2012, around the time the threats were mounting, Mr. Stevens recommended hiring and training local Libyan guards to form security teams in Tripoli and Benghazi. The plan showed a faith in local Libyan support that proved misplaced on the night of the attack.

During an Aug. 15, 2012, meeting on the deteriorating security around Benghazi that Mr. Stevens attended, a diplomat stationed there described the situation as “trending negatively,” according to a cable sent the next day and quoted in the report. A diplomatic security officer “expressed concerns with the ability to defend post in the event of a coordinated attack due to limited manpower, security measures, weapons capabilities, host nation support, and the overall size of the compound.”

A C.I.A. officer at the meeting pointed out the location of approximately 10 Islamist militias and Al Qaeda training camps within Benghazi, according to the same cable. After reading the cable, Gen. Carter F. Ham, then the commander of the United States Africa Command, called Mr. Stevens to ask if the embassy in Tripoli needed additional military personnel, potentially for use in Benghazi, “but Stevens told Ham it did not,” the report said. A short time later, General Ham reiterated the offer at a meeting in Germany, and “Stevens again declined,” the report said. The same Aug. 16 cable had also promised that requests “for additional physical security upgrades and staffing needs” for the Benghazi mission would be submitted through the Tripoli embassy, but “the committee has not seen any evidence that those requests were passed on by the embassy, including by the ambassador, to State Department headquarters before the Sept. 11 attacks in Benghazi.”

The Senate reports notes that the CIA bolstered its security at the annex, located near the diplomatic compound and actually paid attention to these reports. Stevens and the people at the State Department in DC did not. The person at the State Department specifically responsible for security at diplomatic compounds was Patrick F Kennedy. Kennedy held a similar job in 1998 when two American Embassies in East Africa were bombed. Clearly, Mr. Kennedy is not capable of doing his job and should never be allowed to be responsible in such a capacity again.

Nowhere in the report do we see secret plots or cover ups that we have been hearing squeak from inside the right wing bubble. No evidence that Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama turned down additional security requests. This bloviation can be summed up quite simply as this. Sorry, folks, the president is better at foreign policy and international security than George W. Bush. Deal with it.

With this new information, I'm expecting some retractions from people who claim they can admit when they are wrong. Let's with Kevin Baker and his bullshit lying.

Paying Down Debt

Hey, look what super liberal California Governor Jerry Brown is doing.

Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday proposed a $106.8 billion general-fund budget that seeks to pay off a big chunk of the state's long-term debt while making modest investments in public schools, health care and the troubled bullet train. While the state's finances have improved significantly since the days of embarrassing, multibillion-dollar deficits, Brown said at a morning news conference that he believes the newfound fiscal stability could be short-lived and that restrained spending of scarce state resources is crucial.

What the-?!!?? A fiscally responsible liberal. you say? Where is Spock with a beard?:)

Gag Reflex

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Even Weaker

Personally, I don't think the bridge scandal is that big of a deal in terms of Chris Christie's chances of being president in 2016. Is still think he'd make a great president. This isn't any different than things Democrats have done in the past so why is the left all bunged up about it? In fact, I would think the right would be more pissed off because Christie is acting like a Democrat in pulling this sort of shit. Besides, it's far less worse of a transgression than the sheer moonbattery we have seen these last few years from conservatives.

Yet, if Christie is toast, the GOP is really fucked. This recent piece in the Washington Post shows how there really isn't a good candidate out there that can win a national election. If 2012 was weak, 2016 is going to be downright awful without Christie. Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Scott Walker, Marco Rubio or Bobby Jindal? I challenge Republicans to show me someone who can beat Hillary Clinton, let alone a Democrat at all.

Tough One

The Supreme Court has a tough one in front of it with this case. Does free speech trump possible physical danger?

A couple of mornings a week, Eleanor McCullen stakes out a spot outside the Planned Parenthood clinic here and tries to persuade women on their way in to think twice before having an abortion. But she has to watch her step. If she crosses a painted yellow semicircle outside the clinic’s entrance, she commits a crime under a 2007 Massachusetts law. Early last Wednesday, bundled up against the 7-degree cold, Ms. McCullen said she found the line to be intimidating, frustrating and a violation of her First Amendment rights. The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Wednesday in her challenge to the law.

Yet...

The state’s attorney general, Martha Coakley, who is the lead defendant in the suit, said the 35-foot buffer zone created by the 2007 law was a necessary response to an ugly history of harassment and violence at abortion clinics in Massachusetts, including a shooting rampage at two facilities in 1994.

It's going to be interesting what SCOTUS has to say about this. My first reaction is what difference does a few feet make? Is there some sort of Pavlovian response to having a line drawn the prevents people from committing violence? Before reading their opinions, I say that Ms. McCullen's right to free speech is being violated. It's a public street. People can say whatever they want. If you are tough enough to go get an abortion, you can withstand an extra few seconds of conversation.

Or maybe you shouldn't have been a moron in the first place and used birth control more effectively.

Stunning...

The First Casualty in Fox News' War on Texting

I don't watch Fox News, so I'm usually alerted to their craziness only when Jon Stewart calls attention to it. One of the more hilarious recent segments on The Daily Show was his sendup of Bill O'Reilly's tirade against marijuana and texting. (Lest you accuse me of some kind of liberal TV news bias, I also never watch the garbage on MSNBC, CNN, or the histrionic pap local TV sprays across the airwaves.)

In the Fox News segment, after O'Reilly claims that smoking weed is "literally Russian roulette," he notes that 75% of teenagers have cell phones and text (!). As if marijuana is the gateway drug to texting. O'Reilly then says that American kids should study harder and be more competitive, like the kids in the People's Republic of China (where kids text even more than they do in America).

Well, old white men have heard O'Reilly's call to action and fired the first shots in the battle for freedom from texting. An ex-cop in Florida shot and killed a man for texting during the previews at a movie theater. This appears to be the reason why we need to carry guns wherever we go: a good guy with a gun is needed to stop texting wherever it might break out.

The victim, Chad Oulson, 43, was texting his three-year-old daughter. His wife was also shot in the hand by the same bullet. That little girl sure is precocious, having her own cell phone and able to read at the tender age of three. Too bad her daddy was vile, low-down movie-preview texter, a dog too dirty to let live because he was filling that little girl's innocent mind with poisonous . . . texts.

The shooter, Curtis Reeves, 71, retired from Tampa Police Department 20 years ago. He was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. This is another in a long string of gun madness by crazy old coots, like the old man who shot a 13-year-old boy on the street in front of his mother, or the old man who abducted a boy and held him hostage at gun point in a bunker in Alabama.

The NRA likes to say that guns don't kill people, people kill people. But if Reeves hadn't had a gun in that theater he wouldn't be in jail, and Oulson's daughter would still have her father.

Guns are like a drug. They give men delusions of grandeur, strip them of their normal inhibitions and incite them to violence. Without guns, these old coots -- and probably the vast majority of people who kill with guns -- would never dare attack others with their fists. At best they'd simply be pulled off their victims. At worst they'd be beaten to a bloody pulp. But a gun in their hand gives them the power and the courage to kill on the slightest impulse.

So, I have to wonder. Did Curtis Reeves watch Bill O'Reilly's tirade against texting? Did Fox News incite this old coot to murder a man texting his little daughter?

Yes, I can hear the defense attorney addressing that typical Florida jury of little old white ladies, all Fox News viewers: "Bill O'Reilly told my client that texting was like marijuana, and when that man said he was texting his daughter my client knew he had to protect her from that monster at any cost!"

Eight Inches

Remember a couple of weeks back when that ship carrying scientists and adventure tourists got stuck in the Antarctic and the 12 year olds laughed and pointed? Well, it turns out that there was no connection between that event and climate change.

The episode had little connection to climate change — shifting winds had caused loose pack ice to jam against the ship — and this was far from the first time that a ship had been trapped, even in the Antarctic summer. But sea ice cover in the Antarctic is changing, and scientists see the influence of climate change, although they say natural climate variability may be at work, too. “The truth is, we don’t fully understand what’s going on,” said Ted Maksym, a researcher at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Unlike the Arctic, where sharp declines in recent decades in the ice that floats on sea surfaces have been linked to warming, sea ice in the Antarctic has actually increased, scientists who study the region say. Averaged over the entire Antarctic coast, the increase is slight — about 1 percent a decade. At the same time, larger increases and decreases are being seen on certain parts of the continent.

In short, listen to science, not the right wing blogsphere.

This incident calls for a reminder of the Top Ten Right Wing Lies Regarding Climate Change with special attention to this one. Another great resource on all the lying is Skeptical Science. Here is their analysis of the Antarctic lie.

Meanwhile we have eight inches...

A Responsible Gun Owner

Check out this story.

Three neighbors said a neighborhood meeting was held last Sunday so that Bauerle could talk about his fears about surveillance around his home, but they described his fears about the surveillance as “quirky” and “made you scratch your head.” Bauerle’s fears and suspicions about surveillance occur at a time when he has been on the air, criticizing the governor for sponsoring the new gun control laws in New York State and accusing Cuomo of seeking retribution.

At least he voluntarily submitted himself for a psych evaluation.

And people wonder why there is so much gun violence in this country...

Picking And Choosing

Evangelical Christians continually rip liberal Christians by saying that they pick and choose what verses of the Bible to follow and which ones not to follow. This is ridiculous when one considers, for example what God told Moses in Leviticus.

“‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death. Because they have cursed their father or mother, their blood will be on their own head. (Leviticus 20:9)

‘If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death. (Leviticus 20:10)

“‘If a priest’s daughter defiles herself by becoming a prostitute, she disgraces her father; she must be burned in the fire. (Leviticus 21:09)

Considering I don't see any conservative Christians putting their kids to death for mouthing off to them, they pick and choose as well just like every other Christian. So, their protestations are completely ridiculous. In fact, nearly all of the 600+ commands of the Old Testament are no longer applicable today. Most Christians do not follow them unless they are Messianic Jews. What remains applicable today are the Ten Commandments + Jesus's New Commandment.

It would seem, then, that the issue of homosexuality should also be swept away with archaic OT laws and commands as it is mentioned with all the rest of them. The problem is that homosexuality is mentioned in the New Testament in both 1 Corinthians 6:9 and Romans 1:28. Paul, not God, is talking here so that should be the first clue as to how much weight it should hold. Further, something has clearly been lost in the translation from Greek to English as noted in this excellent piece from St. John's Metropolitan Community Church.

If Paul had wanted to condemn homosexual behavior in general, the word for it at the time was paiderasste. What he did, rather than simply use one of the many existing, quite precise Greek terms for aspects of homosexuality (or for homosexuality in general) – words that he would have been quite aware of – is to coin a new word from the Greek translation of Leviticus 20:13. 

In the Septuagint, Leviticus 20:13 is something like hos an koimethe meta arsenos koiten gunaikos (And not lie-down with mankind [in] beds [of] a woman/wife). Notice the words arsenos koiten together there? It would have surprised no one for the scholar Paul to have compounded the noun arseno with the following Greek verb koiten into a new word, thereby repeating the prohibition of the abuse of temple prostitution in Leviticus – and it would be no surprise that his learned audience had no need of a translation or an explanation of the new word for an old idea; they, too, would have been familiar with the passage in Leviticus. (This would not be Paul’s only reference to earlier Scriptural phrasings; for example, when he wanted a phrase for ‘female’ and ‘male’ other than more common pairs, he used thelusi and arsen, words that had appeared together in the narrative of creation in Genesis.) 

Once Paul’s warnings helped temple prostitution disappear from the landscape, the force of his words very likely caused later Christians to extend the meaning of arsenokoites to cover other behaviors that Christians found regrettable. Early Christians and Jews also applied the word to incest and orgiastic conduct. For a time it designated masturbation (arseno is singular, as masturbation generally is…). The only certain statement that can be made about the word is that it has changed in its perceived meaning and translation over time.

St. John's Metropolitan Community Church also offers this link and this link for more background on the two words that Paul uses.  Given this evidence, it's quite clear that society, not God, decided that homosexuality was a sin and put that bias into later English translations of the Bible. This means that our changing culture is not violating anything in accepting gay Christians as how God made them as opposed to evil sinners who need to be deprogrammed.

When Jesus said "Keep My Commandments," He meant it quite literally. The rest of it can either be viewed as kind advice (Psalms and Proverbs) or a code of laws that no longer applies to today's society.

Common Ground On The Role Of Government

The liberal and conservative positions on abortion have never made sense to me. Liberals should want more government in people's personal lives so why not be able to tell women what to do with their bodies? And conservatives complaint's about the long nose of government goes out the window when it comes to the womb of a private citizen.

Yet the issue of how much control the government has in terms of someone's right to life was illustrated in a very sad way in this recent piece in the New York Times. The womb of Marlise Muñoz is essentially a ward of the state of the Texas. Children’s Hospital Oakland, not the family of Jahi McMath, has decided that their patient is legally brain dead so they are well within their right (by law) to remove the ventilator. Part of their decision is financial but they are acting as a result of government law.

Even though these stories are gut wrenching, maybe they can be the start of some common ground between liberals and conservatives in defining the role of government in every day life. I would imagine that most people, regardless of where they stand on the political spectrum, are sickened by this. In each case, the government is clearly in the wrong. The families of each of these women should have ALL legal authority over their child and the government should stand out of the way. These stories also stress the vital importance of having living wills that are spelled out in the greatest possible detail.

Uh oh...

How Sadly Our Society Has Changed

From the Variety section in today's Strib...

Bravo 1985: “Jazz Counterpoint.” Billy Taylor chats with fellow pianists about their craft. Today: “The Real Housewives of Atlanta.” Rich women take turns backstabbing and berating each other. 

A&E 1991: “Breakfast With the Arts.” A tribute to the finest in music, theater, dance and other art forms. Today: “Duck Dynasty.” A Louisiana family markets its duck calls and conservative views. 

Discovery 1988: “World Monitor.” A nightly news show produced by the Christian Science Monitor. Today: “Deadliest Catch.” A look at the rocky life of fishermen in the Bering Sea. 

TLC 1987: “Captain’s Log With Mark Gray.” A low-key, boating-safety series. Today: “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.” A high-energy reality series revolving around a child beauty-pageant contestant in Georgia. 

Well, the certainly explains why some people vote the way they do!

Good Words

It is not fair to expect secular journalists to be biblical scholars, nor should it be anticipated that they would spend the necessary time to research the issue. It is for that reason that they tend to accept uncritically the oft-repeated Evangelical Protestant and Conservative Roman Catholic definitions that the Bible is anti-gay. If these people were honest, they would have to admit that the Bible is also pro-slavery and anti-women. 

There is also a widely accepted mentality that if the Bible is opposed, the idea must be wrong. That is little more than nonsensical fundamentalism. The rise of democracy was contrary to the "clear teaching of the Bible," as the debate over the forced signing of the Magna Carta by King John of England in 1215 revealed. The Bible was quoted to prove that Galileo was wrong; that Darwin was wrong; that Freud was wrong; that allowing women to be educated, to vote, to enter the professions and to be ordained was wrong. So the fact that the Bible is quoted to prove that homosexuality is evil and to be condemned is hardly a strong argument, given the history of how many times the Bible has been wrong. I believe that most bishops know this but the Episcopal Church has some fundamentalist bishops and a few who are "fellow travelers" with fundamentalists. 

The Bible was written between the years 1000 B.C.E. and 135 C.E. Our knowledge of almost everything has increased exponentially since that time. It is the height of ignorance to continue using the Bible as an encyclopedia of knowledge to keep dying prejudices intact. The media seems to cooperate in perpetuating that long ago abandoned biblical attitude. 

That is not surprising since the religious people keep quoting it to justify their continued state of unenlightenment. That attitude is hardly worthy of the time it takes to engage it. I do not debate with members of the flat earth society either. Prejudices all die. The first sign that death is imminent comes when the prejudice is debated publicly.  ---Bishop John Shelby Spong

The Hidden Costs of Fossil Fuel Use

Charleston, WV

Hundreds of thousands of West Virginians are now without water due to a chemical spill. Freedom Industries (ever notice how frequently companies involved with these disasters use patriotic names?) says they're "confident" that only 5,000 gallons of MCHM (4-methylcyclohexane methanol) spilled from a 35,000-gallon tank. The spill has made the tap water in nine counties smell like licorice.

The president of the company, Gary Southern, doesn't know how the leak occurred, but he assures us that the chemical has "very low toxicity." MCHM is used in processing coal. It's a form of alcohol, and an article at CNN says that it causes rashes, headaches, dizziness, vomiting, nausea, etc., etc. There's basically no research about what it does to people. Animal tests indicate that it causes heart, liver and kidney damage.  The bigger questions are what the long-term effects will be at low levels, and how long low-level concentrations will remain in the affected water systems.

The governor of West Virginia has advised everyone in the affected area to avoid drinking and bathing; the water should only be used for flushing. Thousands of businesses are shut down, including all restaurants and even carwashes. Bottled water is being shipped in, and there are accusations of local merchants gouging residents. In the end this man-made disaster will cost millions of dollars in lost productivity and cleanup, and an unknown number of health problems that may stay with the victims for years.

As far as coal-related spills go, this was relatively minor. But problems like this happen all the time, across the country, and even though they get wall-to-wall coverage in the media when they occur, we forget about them before the next big one, leaving us with no incentive to deal with the underlying problems. For example:

Harriman, TN

In 2008, the Kingston Fossil Plant spill in Tennessee released a billion gallons of coal fly ash slurry from a pond along the Clinch River where the solid waste from the coal-fired power plant was stored. Local neighborhoods were covered by as much as 6 feet of sludge. A similar coal spurry spill occurred in 2000 when one of Massey Energy's (that of the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster) slurry impoundments collapsed, flooding local neighborhoods and creeks with 300 million gallons of poisonous black gunk. All life in the Wolf Creek and Coldwater Fork was killed. Slurry spills happen so frequently that it's impossible to enumerate them all. There's simply not enough space to put all the ash that burning millions of tons of coal produces.

San Bruno, CA

Energy production is a dirty, dangerous business. Coal mines and oil rigs are extremely dangerous places to work; the fatality rate on oil rigs is seven times higher than for all US workers. The BP oil spill in the Gulf was one of the biggest spills in years, costing tens of billions of dollars. In San Bruno, CA, a natural gas pipeline blew up in a neighborhood, killing eight and injuring 58.

Oklahoma was rocked by more than 3,000 earthquakes in 2013,  due to injection of fracking waste deep underground. Before fracking they had 50 a year.

Casselton, ND

In the past six months alone there have been three train derailments in which huge conflagrations occurred. The first was in Quebec, when a train carrying oil from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota exploded in the town of Lac-Megantic, killing 47 people. The second was in Alabama two months ago, when a train carrying North Dakota crude derailed and burned for four days. The third was less than two weeks ago in the town of Casselton, North Dakota, when a train carrying Bakken crude exploded after running into another derailed train. Thousands of local residents were evacuated, though no one was hurt. Trains derail all the time, but they rarely burst into flame. There's clearly something different and dangerous about the oil coming from the Bakken Oil Patch.

Kalamazoo River

Oil pipelines are little better: in September a pipeline in North Dakota leaked 20,000 barrels of oil onto a farm, and the pipeline company didn't realize the pipeline was leaking till the farmer called them, and neglected to inform the public for 11 days. The same Canadian company that wants to build the Keystone XL pipeline, Enbridge, has a pipeline that ruptured in Michigan in 2010, releasing almost a million gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River. One of Exxon Mobil's pipelines burst in Arkansas last March, forcing the evacuation of 22 homes. The Keystone XL pipeline is supposed to carry that same kind of crude oil. Would you want that pipeline coming through your neighborhood?

The railway responsible for Quebec disaster declared bankruptcy in two countries to shield their assets and avoid paying for the deaths and damage they caused. The companies in these industries simply don't have the resources to pay for the huge potential damage that their activities can cause. They're often subsidiaries of bigger companies, intentionally walled off from the parent so that they can quickly declare bankruptcy and avoid paying for the damage they cause.

Local residents, cities, counties and states wind up with gigantic cleanup bills, often asking the federal government to declare them disaster areas.

Fossil fuels are messy and dangerous to extract, messy and dangerous to transport, messy and dangerous to use (consider how many homes blow up every year in natural gas explosions). Their waste products are messy and dangerous to dispose of, and cause air pollution, mercury pollution, acid rain, etc. Not to mention the CO2 that's causing climate change.

At every juncture the expenses involved with cleaning up these messes are frequently not borne by the people profiting from fossil fuel extraction. It's probably the best example of an industry that has privatized profit while socializing the risk.

It is clear that exploitation of fossil fuels has a huge range of deleterious effects on the lives of Americans. Shouldn't they be paying for all the problems they're causing?

All these ancillary costs should be rolled into the taxes that the fossil fuel energy industry pays. That would make the electricity and transportation that rely on those sources cost more, but it would make the people who benefit from its use bear the actual costs. Eliminating the hidden subsidies of these industries would create more incentives for developing alternate energy sources that don't create such hazardous messes.

Humans Are Dangerous!

Great short film on what our planet might look like from an alien species point of view. Perhaps this is why they have not made contact:)

Awesome!

Check out this piece on Tokyo-born, London-based photographer Chino Otsuka. She photoshopped herself into photographs from the past when she was a young girl. Here is an example.

Transparency?

The Right seems to take a great amount of glee by sarcastically pointing out that President Obama has the "most transparent administration ever." I realize that it takes a great deal of effort to put down their copy of Atlas Shrugged, unbuckled their bathrobe and spend a few minutes away from right wing blogs to conjure up an attack like this.

As is invariably the case, however, I have to wonder if these denizens of classical liberalism are as familiar and knowledgeable with US History as they bloviate to be. Would it surprise them to learn this?

In early 1787, Congress called for a special convention of all the states to revise the Articles of Confederation. On September 17, 1787, after four months of secret meetings, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention emerged from their Philadelphia meetingroom with an entirely new plan of government–the U.S. Constitution–that they hoped would ensure the survival of the experiment they had launched in 1776.

WTF??!!?? It can't possibly be that our founding fathers, whom they claim to have a direct connection to in the afterlife, were not at all transparent about the formation of the document they claim to make love to on a nightly basis (missionary position, of course). Why on earth would they be so secretive? Could it be that they wanted to speak their minds without public pressure?

The delegates also agreed that the deliberations would be kept secret. The case in favor of secrecy was that the issues at hand were so important that honest discourse needed to be encouraged and delegates ought to feel free to speak their mind, and change their mind, as they saw fit. Thus, despite the hot summer weather in Philadelphia, and delegates who, on the whole, were rather overweight and hardly “dressed down” for the occasion, the windows were closed and heavy drapes drawn. The merits and demerits of the secrecy rule have been a subject of considerable debate throughout American history.

Feel free to speak their mind and CHANGE their mind as they saw fit? Oh. My. GOSH!!!

Cue the boiling pit of sewage...:)

Aligning Interests

Could our next ally in the Middle East be Iran? This latest piece in the Times posits that it may end up being true.

While the two governments quietly continue to pursue their often conflicting interests, they are being drawn together by their mutual opposition to an international movement of young Sunni fighters, who with their pickup trucks and Kalashnikovs are raising the black flag of Al Qaeda along sectarian fault lines in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen.

Given the new moderate government in Iran, I think it's more than possible. When I read this article, I was instantly reminded of CSM's cover story from a few weeks ago that offers incredible insight into the real Iran as opposed to what we see in our media. Editor in Chief of CSM, John Yemma, had this to say as an introduction to Scott Peterson's piece.

Iran is not just any nation. It is a pillar of civilization. In its 2,700-year history, Persian culture has contributed richly to human knowledge in math, medicine, chemistry, religion, philosophy, poetry, agriculture, and architecture. Modern Iranians prize education, intellect, science, and the arts. However divided Iranians may be about the course their nation should take, however drawn to Western ideas and values many are, there is no doubt within Iran about Iran’s worth and dignity.

We do indeed have a great deal in common with the Iranian people. This is not a backwards culture but a pillar of human civilization dating back to our dawn as a people. As CSM points out as well, they may indeed be our new best friend.

A Whole Lot of Phony Bullshit.

Check out this revelation about the Duck Dynasty clan.

Wow.

I realize reality shows are fake but this can't even be classified as "reality." Why didn't they just say it was a mockumentary a la Spinal Tap from the get go? At least they would have been more respected.

The Bible and Homosexuality

I found this site on religious tolerance a while back and recently rediscovered it when I had to go to a backup of my bookmarks (beware of the "search conduit" malware---grrrr). Check out what they have to say about the Bible and homosexuality.

Seven or eight main biblical passages that may deal with same-gender sexual behavior are described below. They are often referred to as "clobber" passages, because they are often used to attack persons with a homosexual or bisexual orientation. They have been interpreted very differently by various religious denominations, para-church groups, and traditions. All groups recognize that these biblical passages condemn some types of sexual behavior but there is no consensus within a given religion whether they refer to consensual sexual behavior by persons with a homosexual or bisexual orientation, and whether it refers to all people or only to persons with a heterosexual orientation.

Clobber passages...love it...

Here's an interesting comparison...

Among the full spectrum of faith groups, from the most conservative to the most liberal:

• Most conservative faith groups tend to interpret all of the clobber passages as condemning all forms of same-gender sexual behavior, whether by men or women. They do this, even though only one of the seven or eight passages actually refers to women, and that sole passage refers only to women with a heterosexual orientation. 
• Most liberal and progressive faith groups tend to interpret the same passages -- in their original languages of Hebrew and Greek -- as referring to: temple prostitution, how it is unacceptable for two men to have sex if they do it on a woman's bed, kidnapping slaves, adults sexually abusing children, engaging in sexual behavior that is against one's sexual orientation and basic nature, and/or engaging in bestiality -- sexual activity with a non-human species. 
• Most mainline denominations and faith groups are split on these passages' interpretation with part of the membership taking the conservative position, and another part taking the liberal/progressive interpretation. 
• We have never found a faith group that accepts same-gender sexual behavior by lesbians while condemning such behavior by males, even though that could be a logical interpretation of Romans 1.

That pretty much sums it up. Check out all the sub links as well, especially this one:)

Brainiacs

Stunning piece in the Times about the human brain and an NIH study that will help to answer the following questions: How do differences between you and me, and how our brains are wired up, relate to differences in our behaviors, our thoughts, our emotions, our feelings, our experiences? Does that help us understand how disorders of connectivity, or disorders of wiring, contribute to or cause neurological problems and psychiatric problems?

With the exponential growth of technology, I say that within the next two decades we are going to know far more about the human brain than has been thought possible up to this point in human history. Honestly, I think what we discover is going to be very frightening some people as I think we will discover how we were made.

And why.

What Are They Talking About?

One would think it was Christmas in January for conservatives with their reaction to the forthcoming book by former defense secretary Robert Gates. My conservative friends on Facebook are falling all over themselves as is the rest of Bubble Land over Gates' criticism of the president and, in particular, Vice President Biden. As is usually the case, they are only telling part of the story if even that at all.

In a new memoir, Mr. Gates, a Republican holdover from the Bush administration who served for two years under Mr. Obama, praises the president as a rigorous thinker who frequently made decisions “opposed by his political advisers or that would be unpopular with his fellow Democrats.”

That doesn't really sound like criticism. Neither does this.

Mr. Gates acknowledges that he initially opposed sending Special Operations forces to attack a housing compound in Pakistan where Osama bin Laden was believed to be hiding. Mr. Gates writes that Mr. Obama’s approval for the Navy SEAL mission, despite strong doubts that Bin Laden was even there, was “one of the most courageous decisions I had ever witnessed in the White House.”

Yes, it was.

What does he say about the president in the last chapter?

In his final chapter, Mr. Gates makes clear his verdict on the president’s overall Afghan strategy: “I believe Obama was right in each of these decisions.”

Huh. So wtf are they talking about?

Dirty Tricks in New Jersey

As has long been alleged, recently released emails prove that New Jersey governor Chris Christie shut down lanes of the George Washington to retaliate against the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee.

Christie had demanded Mayor Mark Sokolich endorse him for governor. When Sokolich refused, Christie's deputy chief of staff, Bridgett Anne Kelly, sent an email to David Wildstein, an official appointed by Christie to the New Jersey Port authority, who happens to be a high-school pal of the governor.

The email read simply, "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee." Wildstein replied, "Got it." The New Jersey Port Authority then shut down three lanes on the bridge, creating a terrible traffic mess for the town of Fort Lee.

As the traffic piled up Kelly and Wildstein had the following exchange:

“Is it wrong that I am smiling?” Mr. Wildstein texted Ms. Kelly.

“No,” she texted back.

“I feel badly about the kids,” he texted.

“They are the children of Buono voters,” she said, referring to Mr. Christie’s Democratic opponent, Barbara Buono, who was trailing consistently in the polls and lost by a wide margin.

You can just imagine this same conversation replaying every time Republicans pull their dirty tricks: pulling funding from underperforming inner-city schools with No Child Left Behind, cutting food stamps from the farm bill, enacting voter ID laws that make it hard for old ladies and college students to vote.

The incident shows that Christie is petty little man (figuratively speaking, obviously). He's an egocentric conceited liar who will inflict misery on innocent people in order to strong-arm erstwhile "allies" to get what he wants. This demonstrates why the man should never be president: he cannot be trusted to wield any kind of power fairly.

Christie's integrity has long been questionable. When New Jersey senator Frank Lautenberg died, Christie called for a special election to be held on October 16, 2013, three weeks before the general election.

Why didn't Christie wait till November and roll the Senate election into the general election, saving New Jersey taxpayers a few million dollars? Christie wanted to increase his chances of reelection: Cory Booker, the popular mayor of Newark, was running for Lautenberg's seat. Christie was afraid that if Booker ran at the same time that he was, Booker's presence on the Democratic ticket would increase Democratic turnout and help Christie's opponent win.

I'm sure the Tea Party is crowing about Christie's comeupance. They hate the man more than Democrats do, because despite all his flaws, Christie does occasionally put the people of New Jersey ahead of conservative ideology (especially when it makes him look good).

But Christie's dirty tricks are straight out of the Republican playbook: sabotage your enemies, blackmail potential allies. It's the same Nixonian script Republicans have been following for the entirety of the Obama presidency.

Most Republicans have the good sense to plot in smoke-filled rooms behind closed doors, though sometimes the truth spills out. Like when they claimed voter ID laws weren't created to prevent minorities from voting in Texas, they were created to prevent Democrats from voting.

Christie's flunkies made the mistake of having extended email and texting exchanges about their dirty tricks, using non-work email accounts to hatch their plot. They apparently thought this would avoid the embarrassing "lost emails" scandal that sank the plot by Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzalez and the gang who were torpedoing US attorneys who wouldn't play ball with their voter suppression efforts.

As far as dirty tricks go, Christie's lane closures might not seem very dangerous. That would be incorrect. Traffic jams cause car accidents, which can cause deaths and injuries. Ambulances caught in traffic jams may be carrying patients who may die because they failed to reach the hospital in time. Everyone stuck in the traffic jam is wasting time and money, reducing productivity.

Whether any great harm came of Christie's dirty trick is really beside the point. Anyone who would use these sorts of tactics to blackmail public officials into supporting them lacks the judgment to be governor. Who could trust this man in the Oval Office not to abuse the presidency for personal gain? Christie would be another Nixon, bringing shame upon this nation, not to mention the Republican Party.

I think that flushing sound coming from New Jersey is Christie's presidential campaign going down the toilet.

Still Slow

A recent report by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services shows that health care spending is down for the fourth year in a row. Patients have greatly benefited from this considering past increases in medical and premium costs. The Affordable Care Act has had minimal impact on this slowed growth even though the White House has taken credit for it in terms of lowering Medicare spending by penalizing hospitals with high readmission rates, for example.

Regardless of why it is happening, we are heading in the right direction. Reducing the growth of health care is vital to the overall integrity of our economy. People can't live their lives being one crisis away from losing everything they own.

We ♥ The Aristocracy!

The season premiere of the fourth season of Downton Abbey brought with it all the usual overblown publicity and hysterical Facebook posts about all of the latest doings in the Yorkshire county estate in the early part of the 20th century. I enjoy the show a great deal from an historical perspective but see it for what it is: Melrose Place with Brits.

As I was watching the premiere on Sunday night, I thought about this Fox News Clip in which all the conservatives hilariously championed... the benefits of an aristocracy! Don't they realize that they can't both support our founding fathers AND champion the generosity of rich folk who help out the poor folk? Especially British folk? They probably don't and that's when I had an epiphany.

Most conservatives today are from the south and pine for those lost days of antebellum. In particular, they miss the hierarchy of the aristocracy that was present in that region during that time. The top of that hierarchy is available only to those individuals born of a certain stature and ideology. In short, that means, NO FUCKING LIBERALS. And only those who are pure in all the ways the Right sees fit.

So, the real reason why conservatives hate Bill Clinton and Barack Obama as much as they do is because the office of the president is a close to "king" as we get in this country. The very idea that someone who is not pure gets to be "king" as a major affront to those inner dreams of aristocratic fantasy. People like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama simply don't belong up there. No Democrat does. Throw in the fact that President Obama is black and it's even more of an insult.

Go deeper and one can really see the problem. Conservatives both pine for the aristocracy (whining about tradition and the ways things used to be juxtaposed with screams of class warfare anytime anyone mentions inequality)  and then turn around in the same breath and bitch about the political class and how individual rights are being trampled. Can't they see their hypocrisy? No wonder they act like children all the time. They are fucking bipolar and being driven crazy by their inner struggle.

Considering that they define themselves as the "haves and soon to haves", it makes even more sense that they are as nuts as they are. Someday (see: very likely never) they will be at the top of the heap and they don't want any of those peasants creeping on their dough (see: hard earned money pilfered by lazy non whites). Yet how can they get there without freedom or liberty?

What a puzzler!

Not Banned On These Premises

Looks like City Council Member Leslie LeCuyer just learned a lesson about how FUBAR gun laws are in this country.

Even though she’s a self-described gun enthusiast, LeCuyer later suggested the city put up a sign forbidding guns from the premises like those found near the doors of so many businesses around the state. She was shocked to learn that, legally, the city couldn’t. People sometimes come to City Hall angry, she pointed out.

“Our decisions can impact people: Whether or not they can build onto their home, whether they can put up a building on their property,” she said. “That’s what we put our name on the line to do. But we don’t put our name on the line to be killed … People have to do these jobs. We don’t want it to be so unsafe that no one will do it anymore.”

Well, it's not like someone is going to charge into a city hall and shoot up the place. Especially when there are good guys with guns who always save the day, right?

Ah well, Leslie can rest comfortable knowing that there are armed civilians there to protect her from bad guys.

Bringing In The Big Guns

These days, politicians in DC can't seem to get their message across. Americans seem to not want to listen if you are a politician and it certainly shows in the polls with Congress's rating at continued lows. So, what do you do? Enter Bernie Sanders.

When the majority leader, Harry Reid, exhorted colleagues to “deal with the issue of income inequality,” the talk took a spiritual turn. “You know,” declared Senator Bernard Sanders, the Vermont independent, who caucuses with Democrats, “we have a strong ally on our side in this issue — and that is the pope.” That Mr. Sanders, who is Jewish, would invoke the pope to Mr. Reid, a Mormon, delighted Roman Catholics in the room. (“Bernie! You’re quoting my pope; this is good!” Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois recalled thinking.) Beyond interfaith banter, the comment underscored a larger truth: From 4,500 miles away at the Vatican, Pope Francis, who has captivated the world with a message of economic justice and tolerance, has become a presence in Washington’s policy debate.

Currently, there are around 2 billion Catholics in the world and they all look to the pope as their leader. Pope Francis is not only changing the face of Christianity today but he is clearly affecting politics. He has made inequality his core issue and I think that's going to change economic policy of the United States for the better.

How this all plays out remains to be seen but it's definitely the right direction!